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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22593913">Two Bits (or The Haircut)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bombastique/pseuds/Bombastique'>Bombastique</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Marriage of Convenience, Taking the Star Wars physics approach to immigration law, UST, emotional dummies</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 14:07:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,900</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22593913</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bombastique/pseuds/Bombastique</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Three days into their marriage of convenience, Ben and Rey are maybe starting to realize that there’s more to this arrangement than a green card or a cooperative board of directors.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>111</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>For one is both and both are one in love: The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology's Valentine's Day Exchange</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Two Bits (or The Haircut)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ann3onymous/gifts">Ann3onymous</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Ben Solo is a hotshot executive at a very traditional trading house, Rey is his personal assistant who's in a slightly dodgy work visa situation, and Hux is Ben’s ruthless rival who doesn’t appear in the story itself. The board is getting antsy that both Hux and Ben are young, risk taking weirdos, so word has come from on high that one of them needs to prove his stability by getting married. Hux takes advantage of the fact that Ben has a conscience and he doesn't to sabotage Rey's visa paperwork, so that Ben *has* to marry her. Ben offers her a choice of the best lawyers available to fix things for her on his dime or marriage. Rey chooses marriage, as you do.</p>
<p>So now they’re married and are maybe realizing that this is how they’re going to live.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rey can’t hear the clicking hiss of the frozen rain she sees out the window. It’s a little strange to know that the weather is miserable, cold and treacherous, outside and yet not feel a bit of it in her home. It’s even stranger to think the stark luxury of this loft is home instead of the poorly lit, poorly insulated confines of her tiny walk up, but for the past three days this has been her home. She can faintly hear Ben stomping around in the other room. </p>
<p>When they worked out the particulars of this marriage last week, Ben had talked about moving into a brownstone to look more like a family. Rey had learned how to apply the label “home” to wherever she lay her head years ago, and the shift is as natural as breathing now. She wonders how long she’ll call this place home. At first glance, it’s antiseptic in its lack of personality, but Rey is already beginning to see subtle hints of her boss and husband in the cushions placed not quite straight on the sectional, and the trio of lustrous metallic vases just a little skewed in their placement. Even at home he tries to maintain his facade, and even at home his facade is cracked. He leaves his mark despite his best efforts. This loft might be a cliche for a wunderkind executive, but she rather likes the idea of leaving her own imprint here. She’s moved so many times.</p>
<p>The bedroom door flies open and Ben enters with a lurching step as if he’s realizing just a little too late that he wants to shield her from his temper. His face smoothes from a pinched look of irritation to a rigid mask that utterly fails to hide his inner turmoil. In their two years of working together, she’s become familiar with this transformation. Seeing it in her bedroom, their bedroom, disconcerts her a little, though.</p>
<p>“What’s wrong, Ben?” </p>
<p>Calling him Ben rather than Mr. Solo also disconcerts her. His eyes widen in response to her question. He visibly inhales. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Takes a deep breath.</p>
<p>“The barber slipped and broke his wrist. I had my cut scheduled tomorrow morning. No one else at the shop knows what they’re doing. I either get a bad cut, or let my hair go,” he bites out peevishly. Now this is familiar. Rey is fairly certain he has more than these two options, but his tunnel vision and sense of drama feel blessedly familiar in this new relationship of theirs.</p>
<p>“I could cut your hair,” Rey responds mildly.</p>
<p>“You? Along with everything else, you cut hair?” </p>
<p>The annoyance drains from his voice replaced with that odd tone he sometimes takes with her.</p>
<p>“I used to cut the little ones’ hair when I was younger. I still have my kit.”</p>
<p>When they’d discussed her immigration issues, she told him a little of her childhood. Now he knows a little more. It just slipped right out as if it wanted to be seen. How peculiar.</p>
<p>“Have you ever cut a man’s hair?” he inquires dubiously.</p>
<p>“Well, no, but how much different could it be from cutting a fourteen year old’s?” </p>
<p>Her tone is still mild, but she finds she’s enjoying all the tiny, mysterious expressions that bubble up onto his face as he contemplates the prospect of his wife and personal assistant taking a pair of shears to his luscious locks. If leaving her imprint on his loft is a way of making it her home too, then what would happen if she leaves an imprint on her husband? Does their arrangement allow her to leave her mark on Ben? She decides to press on and find out because it’s just now occurring to her that this is her chance to finally discover if his hair is as soft as it looks. Not that she’s wondered about the feel of her boss’s hair; not more than an employee normally does.</p>
<p>“If I cut your hair, one of two things will happen. Your hair will look fine, or your hair will look terrible. If your hair looks fine, everything else is fine. If your hair looks terrible, you can tell everyone that you couldn’t say no to the woman you love, and we’ve established evidence that this isn’t a marriage of convenience because Ben Solo would never risk his dignity under normal circumstances,” Rey pushes on smoothly. She isn’t sure if this is a battle of wills, but just in case it is, she wants to win it.</p>
<p>Ben doesn’t say anything for a long moment. The tiny muscles in his jaw work, and Rey wonders what the stakes are for him. Has she pushed things too far? She could suggest alternatives like finding an actual barber with a good reputation and lower the pressure on her husband who, oh dear, is looking almost tormented.</p>
<p>“I’ll allow it — no, I mean, yes, I’ll let you cut my hair. You’ve never claimed you could do something you couldn’t before now. We don’t even have to go out. You’ll cut my hair tomorrow morning, and I’ll make you lunch after. If you ruin my hair, I can always burn your grilled cheese sandwich to charcoal.”</p>
<p>That last part is said with one of the least comfortable smiles Rey has ever seen. On anyone else’s face, she’d call it a nervous smile, but she isn’t entirely sure Ben Solo has nerves the way other people do. She sticks her hand out to shake on their deal, mostly to experience that little thrill she gets watching his strong, smooth, warm, gigantic hand completely engulf hers and send delightful little tingles racing across the surface of her skin. Just normal boss-employee, husband-wife stuff. Perfectly normal.</p>
<p>Rey sighs wistfully; then suddenly she’s grinning. She’s going to run her hands all through that hair of his.</p>
<p>**********</p>
<p>The smock is too small. The Velcro tabs just barely meet and lock together, and Ben is afraid to breathe too deeply for fear the tenuous connection will be broken. If he were the dramatic type, he’d call this a metaphor for their marriage, but he’s a rational person who has entered into a practical bargain with a deeply attractive and charming person for business reasons and immigration necessity. There’s no comparison between Rey and him and a Velcro fastener struggling to stay connected. He’s just nervous that she’s going to end up shaving him bald in an adorably clumsy way or something. Not that she’d do that. Rey is always upfront about what she can and can’t do. If she says she can cut his hair, she can cut his hair. That’s why he patiently tested three different chairs she dragged into the kitchen until she decided which one made him short enough that she could fully access his head. He guesses she’s about to get started. Odd how time seems to have slowed down. Rey is bustling in and out of the kitchen removing chairs, placing shears, combs, and electric clippers on the kitchen counter.</p>
<p>Now she’s turning to face him.</p>
<p>Now she’s bending toward him with a gentle smile on her face.</p>
<p>Now one of her hands has gently grasped a lock of his hair, not completely wet from the shower, but still pretty damp. She’s testing it with her fingers, and he doesn’t blurt out a desperate inquiry of how she finds his hair texture or thickness or whatever. He blurts out nothing. He’s guaranteeing this by not breathing.</p>
<p>She strolls behind him.</p>
<p>Ben tries not to flinch as her hands brush his neck and shoulders. His regular barber makes physical contact with him every two weeks, but Rey’s gentle, slender fingers have a distinctly different tactile effect than Hobbie’s competent, unremarkable touch. Her fingers ease into his hair. He works harder not to squirm, fighting the urge to pull away and the urge to curl into her touch.</p>
<p>“You’re very tense. Do you think I’m going to mangle you?” Rey asks with a light note that might be teasing in her voice. It’s a tone she’s never used with him at work, but that he’s sometimes heard her use with other co-workers. A strange fierce gladness swells up from within him. </p>
<p>“But seriously, Ben, you need to breathe. I don’t know if I can catch you if you pass out.”</p>
<p>“I’m breathing!” he protests, and as speaking requires that he inhale, he’s not even lying. He does focus his attention on taking long slow breaths and trying to relax his trapezius muscles.</p>
<p>Rey steps away and back, returning from the counter with a comb. She moves so lightly. </p>
<p>Now she’s behind him again, and one of her hands is gently resting on his head while the other works the comb through his hair. Ben combs his hair regularly. Hobbie combs Ben’s hair on a set schedule as well. Other people have combed Ben’s hair with competent or professional hands. How is this so different? The gentle pull of the comb’s teeth on his scalp sends mild electricity all over, and he feels alive. What is even happening to him?</p>
<p>Now Rey is running her fingers through his hair again. She’s pushing the hair back from his right ear and then forward again. Rey is looking directly at his massive, ridiculous elephant ears. He’s the dumbest man who’s ever lived. Why did he marry her? He offered her a choice of marriage or the best immigration lawyers in the country on his dime. He could have avoided all of this, done the right thing without mentioning the connection between his need to marry and Hux’s sabotage of her visa paperwork. If he hadn’t given her a choice, his ears would still be safe from her eyes.</p>
<p>Her fingers brush the outer rim of his right ear as she goes to work with her comb again. Ben has never been so glad he has ears. He’s being kissed by a fairy. He feels the cool point of the scissor blade gently dragging along the skin behind the top of his ear as she gets situated and makes the first cut. It’s a gentle, slightly clumsy motion that hits like a detonating bomb. He never feels this way when Hobbie cuts his hair. That is a normal exchange of money for services. This is something different. He’s married to a magic person. A witch. A wizard. A hair siren. As Rey’s scissors gently work their way back down his hairline, as he basks in a gentleness he never knew he craved, Ben realizes that he is actually married to her. They’ll stay together until her status is secure, and then she’ll be free to live her life, but he will be married to her forever. All his plans to make the relationship look real to the feds and to the board, the brownstone, the lunch dates, the matching pajamas, all of that was him working his way around to realizing that he’s come home, and that home is this person Rey, whom he has known for two years but never truly known, who is diligent and kind, who looks like a pixie, who is touching him gently, who is gazing at him gently, who is cutting his hair. </p>
<p>He’s going to make her the best goddamn grilled cheese sandwich of her life.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you to Ann3onymous for the fun prompt!</p>
<p>Also, deep and sincere thank yous to dietplainlite, LinearA, and my husband for their insight and encouragement!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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